MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish drugmaker Grifols, struggling with a decline in its share price this year, plans to add independent directors to its audit and remuneration committees to improve governance, its chairman said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday.
Grifols’ market value has fallen by billions of euros since Gotham City Research published three reports in early January accusing the company of overstating earnings and understating debt. Grifols has repeatedly denied these claims.
In a joint interview with CEO Nacho Abia in Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia – his first since the crisis began – chairman Thomas Glanzmann said the appointment of independent directors to the audit and remuneration committees would allow the company to “continue to improve governance.” “.
Abia said Grifols also needed to simplify the way it presented itself to the market.
“We have to work to reduce this complexity and increase the clarity of our explanations to the market, and that is what allowed the Gotham report to raise these concerns,” he told the newspaper.
Grifols said on April 10 it plans to repay its debt obligations in 2025 through proceeds from new senior secured notes and the sale of its 20% stake in Shanghai RAAS to Haier Group.
Glanzmann said demand for the company’s bonds will be strong when the issuance ends in one or two weeks.
“The number of institutional investors who approached us to participate was extraordinary and speaks volumes about the market’s confidence in the future of the company, in our growth and our ability to pay down debt,” he said.
Grifols wants to eventually buy out blood donation company Haema AG and plasma donation company BPC Plasma, selling them to Scranton Enterprises, an investment company linked to the founding Grifols family, in 2018, Abia said.
“We have a very generous opportunity for Grifols to buy these companies and we will take advantage of it. But (there is) no rush,” Abia said.
In its January report, Gotham City said Grifols and Scranton will fully consolidate Haema and BPC Plasma into their accounts. Grifols said this was necessary because it had a call option.